


Home Work

by TaergaLive



Series: The Nigmas [2]
Category: Batman - Fandom, Riddler - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 05:34:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10824837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaergaLive/pseuds/TaergaLive
Summary: A few days after his mother's funeral, Edward gets an unexpected visitor. Well, perhaps not unexpected, but he certainly didn't plan for her. As he deal with his estranged half-sister and his feelings about his mother, Edward starts to discover the ways in which his life could have been different





	Home Work

“You must be joking. We just went over this five minutes ago.”

As a deep sigh escape his nose, Edward pressed his thumb sharply onto his left temple. A headache. He was actually getting a headache from teaching the young girl who sat before him.

He had been minding his own business, resting alone in his cell, when he was told he had a visitor. This took him by surprise and piqued his interest. He hadn’t been scheming, so he wasn’t expecting a henchman to seek him out. No secret coded conversation to be had. He couldn’t imagine who would be visiting him.

Officer Blake escorted him to the visitors station. As the officer flanked him, Edward regarded him carefully. Blake was newer, transferred from Blackgate a few weeks ago, so he was capable of handling a riot or two. But Edward had noticed a twinge of nervousness emitting from the guard. Perhaps he was still not used to handling the crazies. Edward tucked this knowledge away for a rainy day.

As soon as he made his way inside the visiting room, Edward raised his eyebrows and practically rolled his eyes when he saw who his visitor was. She was dressed in a school uniform, a simple plaid jumper and a white long-sleeved shirt that looked a size too big for her, and a black messenger bag on her hip, a bag that had to have been searched thoroughly before letting her in this far into the asylum. She gripped the strap of the bag tightly as she waited, a deep-set frown adorning her face, and that frown remained even as Edward took his seat at the window. 

They both just stared at one another through the glass for a few minutes. Edward had half a mind to tell the guard to take him back to his cell. Edith was not someone he wanted to remember existed right now. His mind was still reeling from his mother’s funeral a few days ago, and he was actually trying to think of anything else. The twelve-year-old girl sitting in front of him was his sister. His half sister. One he didn’t even know existed until he met her at the funeral. And since Edward had a very strained, non-existent relationship with his mother, he hadn’t taken the news well. 

After a few minutes had passed, Edith picked up the phone that hung beside her and waited for Edward to do the same. Again, he was tempted to just stand up and leave, but he hated to admit he was curious to know what the girl wanted. 

“Why hello Edith,” he chimed as he brought the phone to his ear, his voice flat on purpose. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Help me with my math homework,” came the brazen response. 

Edward felt himself twitch. “That’s why you’re here.”

Edith nodded. “Yeah pretty much,” she said as she took off her messenger bag and began to riffle through it. “We’re learning about shapes and whatever and my teacher sucks at explaining anything. The one time I actually went to her for help, she just told me to look in my notes. So I kind of just said fuck it and gave up on the class.

“Now my guidance counselor is getting on my case,” she continued as Edward watched indifferently. She procured a slightly crumpled packet of paper and a mechanical pencil. “She thinks I’m acting out because of mom, and now she’s threatening to send me to a therapist unless I can prove to her I’m not depressed or whatever. So now I actually need to start making an effort in school. So help me with my homework. Please.”

With a slow blink, Edward took a deep breath and set his jaw. “And what exactly makes you think I’m going to waste my time helping you with your homework?” 

Edith didn't flinch. “Because it’d be better than wasting time in a jail cell? Because I had to walk a mile and take two buses to get here? Because you’re the one who’s trying to adopt me out of spite?”

That last point made Edward twitch again. At the funeral, he found out that his mother wished for Edith to be left in his care. When his aunt caught wind of that, she furiously attacked his character and demanded custody be given to her. And since Edward loved tormenting his beloved aunt, he accepted custody. This didn’t mean he had it just yet. He still had to sign the papers, plus Aunt Eileen threatened to get a social worker on the case to make sure Edward would be found unfit to raise a child. Edward half hoped she would. 

He sighed. “Very well. Let me see what you’re working on.” 

After only ten minutes, Edward felt like he was talking in circles. It didn’t help that circles was the topic Edith needed help with. Overall, she knew the formulas for finding the circumference and area, although she tended to mix up which one to use when. Having to correct her was a tad annoying, but it wasn’t the end of the world. No, the icing on the proverbial cake was the “real world application” word problems she refused to understand. There were ten problems in all she had to do, and in those first ten minutes, they were still on the first one. 

The problem gave a circle with a strange, squiggly design shaded in. Edith had to find the area of the shaded area using the given radius. Finding the area of the full circle was easy, but the shaded area wasn’t a standard shape with a formula for finding area, so she couldn’t just find the area of both and subtract the shaded area from the circle. Edward had suggested finding the length of the arc, but Edith had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Not only was Edward trying to get Edith to use equations she wouldn’t learn until sophomore year of high school, but since he was on the opposite side of the glass, he couldn’t show her what he wanted her to do. He explained in great detail the equations and how to solve the problem, but Edith stared at him as if he was speaking in French.

Edward was about to slam his head through the glass.

Getting frustrated, Edith suggested moving on to the second problem, but Edward’s compulsive need to do things perfectly meant that they had to finish the problem before they could move on. Edith threw up her hands. “We’ll be here til midnight, then, because I can’t do it!”

“I can’t make it any perspicuous,” Edward grumbled. 

Edith crossed her arms. “Maybe you’re just a shitty teacher.”

“No, no, no,” Edward tsked, wagging his finger at her. “You cannot indict me for the predicament you’re in. This isn’t my education on the line. I’ve given you the solution to the problem; you’re just too dense to comprehend it.”

She scrunched up her face. “At least I don’t act like some walking, talking thesaurus on fucking steroids.”

“And I at least don’t rely on expletives to make myself sound older.”

Edith couldn’t help but laugh. “You think that’s why I talk like that? Sweetheart, you might think you’re smart, but you’re actually kind of dumb.”

This time, it was Edward’s turn to laugh. He smirked and shook his head. “I really don’t have the patience for this. Good luck on the rest of your homework because we are done here.”

“Oh no we’re not!” Edith hissed. “If you leave, I’ll tell the guards that you’ve been whispering dirty things to me the whole time.”

She said it so earnestly, so calculatedly, that Edward was slightly impressed. Slightly. Why on earth did she even know to use that as a threat? 

Still, Edward smiled. “All of the conversations are recorded, so go right ahead.”

Edith scowled. “You’re bluffing.”

“Am I?” Edward challenged. 

As Edith continued to grimace, Edward continued to simper. Her countenance undoubtedly exhibited her age. Try as she might to appear older or even more mature, she was only a little girl. A silly, immature, little girl that Edward would not let get the best of him. Edward was the smartest person in all of Gotham, and he would never let this little girl forget it. 

Finally, a huff of air escaped Edith’s nose. “I don’t know why she liked you so much,” she grumbled as she slammed the phone back down on the receiver and stood up so quickly she almost knocked over her chair. Edward watched as she scrambled to get her belongings together, glaring at him the entire time. Because she refused to break eye contact, it took her a bit longer than it should to get everything together, which, in Edward’s opinion, made the exit less dramatic. With everything gathered, she pointed her index finger menacingly at Edward, or at least as menacingly as a twelve-year-old girl in a school uniform could, and then turned on her heels and stormed out. 

With his visitor gone, Officer Blake pulled on Edward’s arm, telling him it was time to return to his cell. Edward hung up his phone and stood up, yanking his arm back from the guard. He abhorred being man-handled, especially when he was more than capable of escorting himself back to his cell. He vocalized this to Blake, who looked as though he wasn’t sure how to respond. Finally, the guard just grumbled for Edward to get going. Blake followed the inmate closely. 

The rest of his day was relatively normal, but Edward had a difficult time concentrating on anything external. He kept returning his thoughts back to Edith’s visit, replaying the scene in his head. The first few times, his bias took over. He could only see his side of the story and agreed that everything went as smoothly as it possibly could with the impossible child. But as night began to fall, and as he stood in line for final roll call, the scene began to play out differently in his head. Maybe because he was tired and not thinking straight, but suddenly he felt odd about what had happened. Like he maybe, perhaps, if it was even possible, was wrong. He knew that couldn’t be so, but he felt something within him. Doubt? No, it couldn’t be. That would never happen.

He lay in his bed, watching the phosphenes twinkle before him in the dark. As a child, he never knew what those little lights were. He remembered asking his third grade teacher once, and she told him they were left over light that didn’t leave the room quick enough. Even at that age, Edward knew that answer made no sense. He eventually found out they were the result situation of the retina, either electrical or magnetic, or just sensory cells misfiring. Despite know what they were, Edward enjoyed watching them while he thought. 

His thoughts were interrupted briefly, as they often were this time of night, when the cell door opened and his cellmate was shoved into the room. Instead of attending the nightly roll call, Jonathan Crane was usually ushered to the infirmary for his nightly dose of melatonin. The professor was an insomniac, and not a very pleasant one to be around. Some nights Jonathan would just sit in bed, staring at one specific spot on the wall for the seven hours they had to sleep. Other nights, he would pace the length of the cell, slowly, deliberately. Edward made the mistake once of telling Crane to knock it off. Jonathan complied but spent the rest of the night waiting for Edward to fall back asleep just to whisper nursery rhymes in his ear each and every time. Edward learned to just let the man do what he needed to do. This night, Jonathan sat in his bed, leaning his back against the wall, his head drooping. It appeared to Edward as if Jonathan was fighting the medicine for some reason. Maybe the man was planning to get out. Either way, despite appearing both mentally and physically tired, Jonathan sat there staring at the floor. 

Edward returned his gaze to the ceiling. It seemed that both of them were fighting sleep. While he didn’t have it nearly as bad as Jonathan, Edward found some nights harder to sleep than others. He blamed the location. On nights spent outside of Arkham, Edward slept soundly. But in Arkham, he would usually sleep for four hours straight before staying awake for two, then falling asleep for the final hour before morning roll call. But while Jonathan was usually mentally tired by the medicine, Edward was mentally stimulated, and that was why he couldn’t go to sleep. His brain normally went in thousands of directions this time of night. He had nothing to help him focus his thoughts on one topic at a time. He wanted to finish each thought, but it was hard to do when they kept bouncing around. That night, they were bouncing from the visit to the funeral to an escape plan that he had put on the backburner for a few weeks back to the funeral to his therapy session earlier that day to the visit to a memory of his father to a conversation at lunch to

“Jon,” Edward called out in a hushed tone. 

Jonathan gave a delayed hum as his reply. 

Edward wasn’t sure why he had gotten the other’s attention, but now that he had he, he supposed he should use it. Pressing his lips together, he formulated his question carefully.

“If someone kept a secret from you, a fairly prodigious secret, how would you respond?”

Again, Jonathan only hummed in response at first. After a minute, Edward saw the man shift his head and could feel Jonathan looking at him.

“The question is too vague. I can’t answer it.”

Edward sighed. “Say a family member kept a secret from you, one that shouldn’t have been kept from you for as long as it was, how would you respond?”

It was Jonathan’s turn to sigh. “I honestly don’t care what secrets my family might have. I do not care for my family. So I cannot relate to this question. However, I suppose most people would feel betrayed, especially if they found out this secret by accident rather than being told. Again, the question is still too vague for me to analyze fully. What kind of secret? How long? These would factor in.”

Edward propped himself up on one elbow and looked towards Jonathan’s silhouette. “Did you ever deal with child patients?”

Jonathan shook his head, appearing slightly more alert. “I was never a therapist. I did clinical research. My test subjects had to be legal adults when I worked for the university.”

“And when you didn’t…?” Edward let his question trail off.

“I tested my fear toxin on a child once,” Jonathan said, shifting slightly so his legs were resting on bed. “Children have strange fears which make little to no sense. They don’t understand how the world works, and it manifests in bizarre nightmares. The child in question was afraid of being sucked down a drain. But this is a common fear children have, and once they learn more about the world, the fear dissipates. I am more interested in the fears which have no explanations. Fears that one cannot get over by simply learning more about the topic.”

Whenever Edward listened to Jonathan talk about fears so nonchalantly, he always felt a little uneasy. He tried to sound just as unperturbed. With a bit of a chuckle, he shook his head. “And they keep telling me I need help.”

Jonathan tilted his head. “Why the sudden curiosity about children and family secrets?”

“Just a topic that came up today,” Edward explained. 

Having been in the dark for awhile, Edward’s pupils were dilated enough that he could see Jonathan more clearly. The man rubbed his eyes with one hand. “If you’re going to keep me awake, at least give me a cigarette,” he demanded. 

While he only smoked occasionally, Edward tended to keep at least a pack of cigarettes with him just in case. They came in handy sometimes. If he’s out in the city and wants to gather some intel, for instance, he would take a smoke break somewhere he could eavesdrop. He pulled a pack from underneath his pillow and tossed it to Jonathan, who managed to catch it despite being so drowsy. From underneath his mattress, Jonathan pulled out a lighter and lit one up quickly as to not draw attention to their cell. 

With his vice satisfied, Jonathan seemed more lucid. He sat up straighter and crossed his legs over the side of the bed. “You’re hiding something,” he said after a long drag on his cigarette. “I’m not sure what, but you’re being vague on purpose. Normally you have no qualms with oversharing.”

“I only share what I want others to know,” Edward scoffed. 

Jonathan smirked. “If that’s what you’d like to believe…”

There was a lapse of silence before Jonathan spoke again. “Is this about your father?”

Edward shot up. “I told you to never bring him up to me again.”

Ignoring him, Jonathan squinted. “Hm...no, no it doesn’t seem to be about him. You wouldn’t care about a family secret your father kept from you. Perhaps…”

But Jonathan didn’t get a chance to finish that thought. Bright lights began to flash through the cellblock, along with a screeching buzz. Second later, water rained down on them, and the asylum was filled with groans and expletives. Edward glared at Jonathan. In his drowsy state, Jonathan had forgotten to keep his smoke away from the very sensitive smoke detector. He sighed and broke the now-drenched cigarette in half. 

“Oh nurse!” the all-too-familiar deranged voice of the Joker sang out a few cells away. “It seems that I wet myself in my sleep.” More groans followed as he began to laugh hysterically.

As all of the cell doors swung open, Edward got out of his bed. “Looks like none of us are getting any sleep tonight.”

And perhaps it was the lack of sleep that drove Edward to his course of action the next day. For some reason, even he wasn’t sure why, he found himself using the computer during his recreational period, emailing a trusted associate. Well coded of course. Mike was a mechanic, a traditional blue-collar man who owned a few auto shops and chop shops. He might now have had what most would call a classical education, but he was a quick study. Edward had worked for him when he was seventeen, shortly after dropping out of high school and leaving home. Mike talk the kid how to fix up cars and Edward taught the man about different kinds of ciphers. It came in handy, especially since not all of Mike’s businesses were legitimate. 

Even after all of these years, Edward still relied on him for favors. Well paid favors, because Edward would never seek help for free. That’s cheating. But if he pays for it, that’s just being resourceful. He’ll sometimes ask about what is happening in the various neighborhoods. Sometimes he’ll ask for items to be smuggled in. Several encrypted emails back and forth, all from different accounts, and a few days later, Edward found himself a free, albeit illegally so, man. 

Breakouts from Arkham usually weren’t that hard, not with Arkham’s inferior security. It also helped that due to budget cuts and many of the staff retiring early, the asylum was being staffed by new recruits, such as Officer Blake. Not that Edward needed the assistance. No, breakouts were easy. It was staying out that proved to be difficult. However, Edward had found that as long as he wasn’t proactively seeking out the Bat, the Bat normally never found him. Or at least bothered to deal with him, but Edward liked to think of it as the former. 

Standing outside of a poorly painted building, Edward tried to appear as if he belonged. He dressed as casually as he could bring himself to do, wearing khakis and a polo shirt, but the security guards kept eyeing him up as he glanced at his watch. He supposed that by this point in the year, the guards got to know who normally picked the children up from the school, and Edward did not seem familiar to them at all. 

A little past 2:50, children started exiting the building en masse. Kids of various ages grouped together in small cliques, many of them heading for the buses around the corner. High pitched squeals and hollered obscenities reminded Edward of how much he did not miss school at all. Most of the kids cleared out rather quickly, jumping into the buses, the security guards smiling at them and making small talk while also keeping a close eye on them. By 3 o’clock, most of the buses were gone and the remaining ones were mostly full. Students only left the three or four at a time, still just as animated as the others. Behind one such group was Edith.

She paused as soon as she saw him. Edward knew this would go one of two ways. Either Edith would cooperate with him, or she would tell security that she’s never seen him before in her life and they’d be calling the police in an instant. However, based on his two interactions with Edith, despite how rough the last one was, he presumed she would go with the former. 

Edward smiled and tapped on the car he was leaning against. It was nothing fancy, just an old 1987 Buick, but Edward always sought out older cars to highjack. First, they were very easy to hotwire. Many newer models require more tools and time to break into. Second, because they were old, the owners never seemed to be in too much of a rush to get them back. Still, Edward made sure to never keep one car for more than one day. 

With a roll of her eyes, Edith walked over and got into the passenger seat as Edward sauntered over to his side of the car. They got settled into their seats and then took off. Edward didn’t want to stay at the school much longer than needed. 

“Where are we going?” Edith asked, her voice dripping with boredom. 

“That’s what you’re going to tell me,” Edward replied. “Where did you and mom live?”

Edith looked at him incredulously. “Okay, you were able to figure out where I go to school, but you need me to tell you where me and mom lived?”

He sighed. “Determining which school you went to was simple. Because you wear a uniform, I ruled out all the public schools in the area. When you came to visit me, you admitted that you had to walk a mile and take two buses to get to Arkham, and while you could have been exaggerating, I found which bus station was closest to Arkham, then which buses routes lead towards non-public schools. From there, I look at school websites to find the one that had your uniform.”

During his explanation, Edith stared at him as if he had just personally offended her. It took her a few seconds to respond. “So...again, you were able to do all that but not figure out where I lived?”

“It would save me time if you just told me,” he conceded. With the school, he at least had the school uniform to go off of. For her house, he had nothing. With enough time, he could research it, but he didn’t want to waste more time than he had to.

Edith scowled. “Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. You do NOT get to make me cry one day and then demand my help the next.”

Edward raised a brow. “I made you cry?”

“Of course you made me cry, you asshole!” she yelled back. “You treated me like a fucking moron, talking to me like you were a college professor or some shit. So if you think I’m going to help you, think again.”

Stuck at a red light, Edward tapped his finger against the steering wheel. He forgot how much he despised Gotham traffic. He had to choose his next move carefully. Working with a child was tricky. At any minute, she could just open the window and scream she was being kidnapped, and he did not put that past her. 

“I admit that I might have used some complicated language that went over your head,” he said, earning him a glare. “But I was at least willing to help you.” 

She huffed. “Yeah, well, I got a zero on that assignment, so fuck you.”

The light turned green. Edward inched ahead, following the line of cars heading toward the next intersection. Yes, he really did not miss driving through the city, especially at some a prime hour. As he approached the next intersection, Edith sighed. “Get in the left lane and turn left here.”

He did as she told him, hiding a smirk. “See? Isn’t it easier to just do as you’re asked?”

“Don’t act so smug,” she said. “Aunt Eileen hasn’t let me go back to the apartment since mom died. I have some stuff there that I want, and I don’t feel like waiting until she decides to finally clean the place out. Go straight at the next light.”

The apartment was only seven blocks away from the school, but with the traffic, it took longer than it should have. They spent the trip listening to the traffic as they hadn’t bothered to turn the radio on. As Edward pulled up to the building, Edith pulled a phone out of her bag. It was an old-style messaging phone, and she slid it open before sending a message and stuffing it back in her bag. 

They traveled up six flights of stairs before Edith led them down the beige hallway. Stopping in front of the seventh door in, she looked around and then gently pushed Edward into a certain spot. He glanced behind him and saw the security camera she made him block. 

“Don’t you have a key?” he asked as she knelt down next to the door.

“I do,” she said, pulling a lock picking kit out of her bag. “But Aunt Eileen took it from me. She doesn’t want me coming back here. Thinks I might get all depressed or break something.”

He was about to ask where she learned to lock pick, but he stopped himself. He didn’t want to be interested in her. He didn’t care about anything that she was doing or saying. The letter. He just had to find the letter.

With a click, the door popped open. Edith gestured for Edward to go in first, so he did. It wasn’t a dump, not exactly. But the apartment was disorganized. Books, magazines, dvds, food wrappers, bottles, and more littered the floor of the main room. Edith glided over all of it will little difficulty, making her way down the hall. 

“I don’t know why you want to be here, but I’m getting my stuff,” she explained as she disappeared through a door. Edward assumed it to be her room. 

As he stood in the main room, Edward had to assume this is where his mother slept. The couch had blankets galore surrounding it as if someone had just flung them off. But he remembered that Edith told him that’s where his mother died. He did his best to keep his distance, much like how young kids keep away from gravestones. Just in case. 

If I were a letter, where would I hide? Edward pondered as he began to sift through the junk. Such a barrage of mixed personalities surrounded him. By the TV were DVDs out of their cases, some movies like Beauty and the Beast and Goodfellas mixed with more adult content that Edward tried not imagining his mother watching and enjoying. No wonder Edith had such a working knowledge of swear words and sex. 

He rifled through the linen closet, but couldn’t find anything resembling a letter addressed to him. At the funeral, the lawyer had told him that Ellie had left Edward a letter, but the lawyer had not been able to find it. Edward wanted to take matters into his own hands. But he felt pretty desperate when he started looking through the kitchen cupboards. He even looked in the fridge, which had nothing save a few leftover pints of rotten Chinese food. 

Raking his fingers through his hair, Edward made his way down the hall. The apartment was small with only four rooms: the living room, the kitchen, Edith’s room, and the bathroom. The bathroom only had a shower and toilet in it; the sink was in the hallway across from Edith’s room. He stood outside her room, peeking through the crack of the partially closed door. It was the only place he hadn’t checked. With a quick flick of his wrist, he knocked. Through the crack, he could see Edith jump before whipping around to the door. There was a look of panic that disappeared when she met his eye. She gestured for him to come in, and as he did, he wondered if she had forgotten he was there. 

“Couldn’t find it?” Edith asked as she stuffed a few shirts in a trash bag. Edward tried not to twitch as he made his way to her desk. Her bedroom was twice as messy as the rest of the house. It was a wonder she could even find what she was looking for. Still, the walled between the piles with grace and pulled out exactly what she was looking for each time. Edward leaned against her desk, trying to stay out of her way. He glanced down at an opened notebook next to a older laptop. There were strange scribbles on it.

Instead of answering her question, he pointed to the notebook. “What this?”

She glanced over. “Oh, that. I was playing a Nancy Drew game and it had one of those puzzles where you need to put stuff in a certain order and they give you vague clues as to what goes where. That was me working it out.”

He cocked a brow and flipped through the notebook. There were pages of the stuff, each filled with notes to herself. He then looked at the laptop. 

“You play on that thing? It’s ancient.” 

She shrugged. “They’re point-and-click games; they don’t need much.”

They fell into silence again as Edith continued to pack belongings into trash bags. Edward could only assume she had nothing else to store them in. She seemed to only be grabbing certain outfits, books, and movies she must not be able to live without. Eyeing the room, Edward realized everything else seemed like junk. Food wrappers, school papers, used dishware, half-drunk bottles of soda and water. 

“How can you live in a room like this?” he finally blurted. Just being in the room made him feel like he needed to bathe. 

Again, Edith shrugged. “I don’t know. I hate putting stuff away? Like, if I put clothes in my closet, I forget they exist, so I leave them out where I can see them.”

“But the trash?”

“Well, isn’t it better this way? Like instead of laying in a landfill, it’s just here.”

Edward twitched. “That’s not...that’s not how that works.”

She threw her hands up. “Whatever! Look, why do you even care? You just want to find whatever mom left you, right? So just leave me alone.”

Just then, 16-bit music started playing from Edith’s messenger bag. She groaned as she fished her phone out and brought it to her ear.

“What?!” She snarled. Edward could make out the other person’s voice but not what they were saying. It was frenzied and angry. 

Edith sighed. “I told you; I’m out. I’ll be home later.”

A pause.  
“That’s none of your business.”

The voice on the other line started yelling. Edith pulled the phone away from her head. She looked pissed as she brought her mouth to the receiver. 

“What are you going to do, call the cops? Admit you can’t handle me? That’d be great. Swell. I’ll finally be rid of you and your stupid husband. You don’t want me. I don’t want you. I’m doing us both a favor right now and staying out of your fucking hair. So leave me the fuck alone. I’ll be home before nine, and then you can pretend you’re a good guardian, alright?!”

She hung up the phone and flung it across the room before the other person could respond. Edward watched as she took some deep breaths and tried to stop shaking. Carefully, he made his way over to where she threw the phone. It still worked, and he could see it was Aunt Eileen who called her, though he didn’t know the phone to tell that. Still, he noted the number and tucked it away in his head. Could come in handy. 

Meanwhile, Edith wasn’t doing a good job of calming down. She looked less angry, but now there were tears in her eyes threatening to fall. She kept them in though as she shoved one of the trash bags off her bed. 

“Don’t know why I’m even bothering packing this shit. It’s not like I can just lug it all the way there anyway. And she’ll just get pissed off at me and start yelling at me again.”

Edward held her phone out to her, but she just turned away from him. He pocketed it instead. He let the silence hang over them because he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to comfort her. He hated her. She was his enemy.

But why?

Why did he hate her? Did it really make sense? Of course it didn’t. It didn’t make sense at all to anyone who wasn’t Edward. But to Edward, it was the only way to cope. It took seeing her near tears to realize that maybe she didn’t get a perfect life just because his mother stayed with her. 

But he would never admit that.

He sighed. “Well, I’m out of here,” he announced as he headed for the hallway. “Unless she hid it in the walls, mom’s letter isn’t here. Might as well enjoy myself while I’m out. Maybe get some dinner, see a show.”

Edith made a face and opened her mouth, but he cut her off. “Would you care to join?”

She blinked at him, mouth still agape. Instead of waiting for a response, Edward turned back into the room and grabbed two of the trash bags she had been packing before heading back to the hallway again. 

As he headed for the front door, Edward heard Edith close her door and follow him closely behind. 

They ate at a family owned Italian restaurant, a semi-fancy place with low lighting and plenty of privacy. Edith’s eyes practically bulged out of her head when she looked through the menu, but once Edward happened to mention that dinner was on him, she appeared more excited. When their waitress informed them that the meal Edith picked was part of a deal where you can order something else to go, Edith looked at her like she was God. 

As they ate, Edward couldn’t help but think what his life would have been like if his mother had stayed. Would she have been able to stop his father’s abuse, or would Edward had suffered twice as much? Edith didn’t seem to hold any ill-will towards her mother, nothing like Edward felt toward his father, but it was clear that Ellie was not a good parent. A child Edith’s age should not be that excited to get a free plate of pasta, nor should she act like a giddy middle school student one second and a hardened, dysfunctional, brooding teenager the next. 

Meanwhile, Edith babbled on and on and on. Edward only half listened, and he felt that Edith really didn’t mind if he wasn’t paying attention. Anytime the waitress came around, Edith clammed up, keeping her eyes down. She would even stop eating. But once it was just the two of them again, she would continue where she left off. 

She mostly spoke of school, of how much she hated it there and the kids she had to deal with. She went to a Charter school, so there were kids from all different sections of the city. Some were middle class, some were lower class. A few were upper middle, and they seemed to be the ones Edith hated the most. It made sense to Edward, seeing where she lived and everything. 

Edith also spoke ill of her teachers. She did the bare minimum in all her classes, which made her teachers either ignore her or target her. Some didn’t care what she did because at least she wasn’t failing like other students. Other teachers got on her case because they felt she could do better if she put in the effort. Edith apparently met with her guidance counsellor at least once a week, and now that her mother was dead, the counsellor wanted her to visit more often. The guidance counsellor was the only adult she spoke highly of, though she still had disdain for the woman. In fact, Edith seemed to speak lowly of everyone she came in contact with.

It was starting to sound familiar. 

Even after they finished their meal and were driving in the car, Edith still found something to talk about. The subjects she was learning in school. A book she had just finished reading. In the car, Edward was able to get a word in edgewise. He was more engaged in these subjects. He could relate more to them. They were discussing a popular YA book series that for some reason everyone loved. The two of them thought the entire thing was stupid. Edith had actually read the books while Edward based all of his criticism on articles he read online. 

Edward pulled over to the side of the road a few houses away from Aunt Eileen’s. He didn’t want her to see Edith get out of a car with him. Edith sighed before undoing her seatbelt and picking up her bookbag. She stared at it for a minute before suddenly flinging herself at him and awkwardly wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He stiffened, unsure of what to do, but she pulled away just as quickly and just smiled at him. 

“Thanks for...well, for not being a complete and utter dickhead.”

Edward smirked. “I am anything but. Thank you for not cursing me out every five seconds.”

She shrugged. “Eh, whatever.” 

With that, she got out of the car and started lugging her bags down the street. He waited until she got to the porch until taking off. Again, he didn’t want to be around when Aunt Eileen found her. As he drove off, he pulled out her cellphone he had pocketed and dialed a number he had memorized a few days before. The call went to a voicemail. 

“Hey, this is Edward Nigma. I just wanted to talk to you about the adoption papers you said I would need to sign…”


End file.
